/PRNewswire/ -- NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723) and its subsidiaries in the United States and Europe, NEC Electronics America, Inc. and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH, today announced that Microsoft Corporation will incorporate leading-edge embedded DRAM (eDRAM) technology from NEC Electronics in the next-generation Xbox(R) platform. The high-performance eDRAM macros designed by NEC Electronics are a key piece of the graphics subsystem and will enable the console to provide users with a stunning high-definition (HD) graphics experience. The eDRAM graphics chip is manufactured in NEC Electronics' 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fabrication facility, which runs the company's most advanced processes.

"The next-generation Xbox platform will provide gamers with a highly advanced graphics experience," said Todd Holmdahl, corporate vice president, Xbox Product Group. "NEC Electronics' cutting-edge embedded DRAM technology plays a vital role in enabling our graphics engine's performance, while its manufacturing process provides a reliable resource that can deliver the volumes required to support what will be an extremely popular gaming platform."

As Brian Neal over at Ace's points out, the leaked block diagram of the Xbox 360 shows 10MB of eDRAM attached directly to the GPU core. A few other details of this diagram have been semi-confirmed, e.g., the cache sizes on the PPC cores match those given for the Cell's (probably identical) PPC core, so I'm leaning toward thinking that the diagram is legit. You can see it here, among other places, if you're curious.

As The Inquirer reports, this eDRAM will make for a really fast chunk of frame buffer memory, which will help quite a bit with anti-aliasing at higher resolutions.